“I’d love to go home,” my mom told him.

“Seems a tad premature,” he said, still looking at me.

“I’ll take care of her,” I said and leaned forward, shoulders back. I smiled my trademark smile and he smiled back. “Let’s see what we can do.”

The sooner we could start chemotherapy the better, he said. A chemical protocol would really clean her out. And then we could live life to the fullest. Travel, he said. Fun, adventure, bucket list. But first she would need to eat, poop, rest. Anesthesia, surgery, opioids, they shut a body down. Hers would have to work a little harder before the surgeon would let her go home, before he would let her come back and fight.

She chose oatmeal for her first meal, took it in tender bites. I opened my phone to film. Look at my brave warrior mother #survivor, bunny filtered and funny in the midst of misfortune. But seeing her this way made me close the screen, tuck it away. I wanted her to stay only mine. I slept again in the recliner and in the morning she sat on the toilet, determined to go. Eventually she did and I brought Nancy in to bear witness to the proof. A social worker came next and ran my mom’s insurance, which wouldn’t cover a visiting nurse.

“Are you sure you can handle this, honey?” Nancy asked me.

“I can handle it,” I said.

At H-E-B I picked up my mom’s prescriptions, Ziploc bags of the heaviest hitters, and no one looked at my ID. I filled a cart with what I wanted her to want. More oatmeal, fiber powder, chicken noodle soup and saltines and ginger ale. Aisle by aisle, I alternated selves. Here I am a woman, shopping, caretaking. Here I am a girl in shock and all the men can tell. They watched me read labels, compare prices, like they knew it was an act. I paid with my mom’s Visa, signed with her name. I loaded her car, stopped for gas at the supermarket pump. I used the squeegee to scrub away the grackle crap. I texted Leah, “She’s heading home!!” She was healing and so was I.

It was autumn by then, but Texas was still hot. At home, I watched Instagram stories while I went through my mother’s drawers, looking for light drawstring pants, a thin zip-up sweatshirt, slide-on flats with rhinestone spackled toes. On the screen, Ella boarded a plane, flew home to LA. Erin shared recent #bootygainz and an entire day of eating. Jake shared bouncing footage of the party, asses and tits and faces hidden by vaporous clouds. He was somehow immune from the no phone rule and I hated him for it. What would have changed if I’d had my phone? I’d know what happened. I closed his story and hoped he’d see I dropped off halfway through.